The Ministry of Education and Science will Estimate Efficiency of Research Institutions

The Ministry of Education and Science has offered a new concept of research institution activity estimation. As Commersant newspaper wrote on the 6th of August, a document elaborated by the ministry had already been published for public discussion on the portal regulation.gov.ru.

In this document the Ministry of Education and Science offers to reject a uniform set of estimation criteria currently used for all establishments. Scientific organisations will be divided into “reference groups” of institutes representing similar profiles. There will be individual estimation methods and minimal values of effectiveness indices selected for each of these groups.

It has been proposed to annually organize a ministerial monitoring, which is currently carried out once in five years. Based on the data obtained the Ministry of Education and Science and the Russian Federal Service for Oversight of Consumer Rights Protection and Human Welfare will be able to monitor development dynamics of each scientific organisation in online mode.

An inter-departmental commission will estimate institutes once in five years. According to the results of the check each institute will be referred to one of the three categories — “leading institutions”, “stable institutions” and “institutions which have lost scientific profile and development prospects”. The organisations which “do not show significant scientific results and at the same time are not unique for the respective branch” will be included in the last group. They can be reorganized, liquidated or their directors may be changed.

In January, 2013 the Russian Academy of Science (RAS) presented its own research into efficiency of scientific organisations. According to its results, only one of 370 institutes – Abaev Centre for Scythian and Alan Studies of Vladikavkaz Scientific Centre of the RAS – was recognized as inefficient.

In 2012 the Ministry of Education and Science carried out a similar analysis of higher education institution efficiency for the first time. According to its results 136 of 502 Russian higher education institutions were recognized as inefficient.